I forgot about the world...

then I was reminded of it.

5 days in Istanbul.

Take pictures with your heart

This is a short film about the work of Jessica Backhaus, a Berlin-based urban photographer, with a real passion for exploring her environment. I am particularly interested in the way she works and her attitude towards finding pictures - something I feel I can relate to when I'm out and about with my camera.

Night Creepers

A few local photographers and myself have recently come together under the tutelage of a Licenciate of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), whose aim is to lead us on kind of informal learning process in urban photography. I'll post more about this once we properly get going, but for now, I just wanted to mention a site that she led us to called Urban Art Core, which features all sorts of stuff to do with urban art, urbanism and most everything urban in general.
Unfortunately, the site has stopped being updated as of Christmas 2012 as the creator decided to move on to other things, but one of the features on there is a list of the best street art photographers working around the world at the moment. I'm not particuarly interested in taking pictures of grafitti in itself, but what really got me excited was the world in which the artists and consequently, the photographers, were taking part in.
One photographer, Keegan Gibbs, has produced a series of pictures, called Vandalism, which has bags of atmosphere and a real sense of action as the mysterious figures jump, climb and hang off buildings and fences in the dead of the night to get the deed done.
I'm sure there is many a cold night waiting around inbetween shots, but it must be worth it to capture moments like this!

Copyright Keegan Gibbs 2013

An old acquaintance

I had passed it a few times before on the coach to London; some faded grafitti, an odd broken window, and what looked like a farmhouse, hidden amongst a family of trees by the motorway. I often wondered how you would find it, let alone get to it, but never got round to actually finding out. Then one day, on a random bike ride on the outskirts of Bristol, I passed by some fields and there it was, quietly lying in ruin in the middle of a field..
There was always the possibility of just hopping the gate and hoping no one would notice me, but my conscience told me otherwise. So, after a few attempts, I tracked down the owner and dropped him a note asking whether it would be alright to photograph the place. A day or two later I got a phonecall from him saying it was no problem and what a fine and sunny day it was to do it on!
So thanks to Roger the farmer, here are some shots of his crumbling old farmhouse on a beautiful winter's morning.

Subterranea

A retro future

In October, I went to London for a portfolio review with a number of editors and publishers as part of the Photomonth festival. I was hoping to gauge an idea of how I could take my work forward and one possibility was to go down more of a documentary route.
With some time in hand before my bus back to Bristol, I shot over to the Barbican Estate, an area that has long intrigued me for its maze of walkways and retro feel, to try out a more analytical approach.

It's a perfect place to do this, with most everything being at right angles and in an ordered fashion. There is something fascinating about the area too, like a forgotten 70's utopia with an atmosphere that somehow reminds me of the film, Westworld, especially with the lines on the ground for people to follow like automated beings.

These last three are technically Moorgate, a business district next to the estate that also exists on walkways.